Installing drywall in laundry room

[serge1966]

This is a DIY project and I am planning to install drywall in our basement laundry. The primary reason is to make it warmer. It is not terribly cold in cold days, but quite uncomfortable when doing laundry. Since this is a townhouse, one wall is adjacent to a neighbor, the front wall is under the ground and two walls are adjacent to the rest of the basement. The main cold is coming from the ceiling.
There are a few specific issues I will be discussing in different forums and topics. In this one I wanted to cover the drywall installation itself.
The drywall in the whole house is 1/2". Is there any reason why I should use different thickness?
The general recommendation is to start with installing drywall on the ceiling, followed by drywall on the walls. There is something I don't like about it. Right now the whole ceiling is open and I have access to all pipes, wires and ductwork, which is great for any check and repair. So what if I start with walls and finish with the ceiling and will not tighten the screws deeply, such that I can unscrew any panel any time and take it off to do any changes/fixes if needed? Well, one wall also has some pipes and wires. so I can also install a narrow strip of sheetrock at the very top so that the panels on this wall could also be taken off easily. Does it make sense?
I also considered a suspended ceiling, but it doesn't look like it will be blocking air circulation efficiently enough?
The wall adjacent to the ground has fiberglass insulation, covered with aluminum foil. I think I can just remove the foil and install the sheetrock over the existing fiberglass insulation.
There is a sheetrock already installed on the wall adjacent to the neighbor and I think I can leave it as is. Two other walls are adjacent to the rest of the basement and I don't see why would I use fiberglass insulation on those.
I'll discuss ceiling insulation in a separate topic.
Now a question about permits. If we put aside for now any other potential problems I will be discussing in other topics, does it look like I need a permit just to install sheetrock in the laundry room? Per my (Howard) county, they list:
-Foundation Permit
-Alterations & Repairs to Attached and Detached Single Family Dwellings
so I am wondering if any of those apply?

 

[Sparky617]

If you want to retain access to the ceiling, I'd skip the drywall and go with a drop ceiling. You could install ceiling grid and use drywall cut to size instead of tiles if you'd like. For the blocking of air, you want to look at sealing all penetrations to the outside and insulating the band joist around the top of the foundation. Drywall has virtually no R-value for insulation.

It is generally not a good idea to install a plastic vapor barrier below grade. I had a townhouse in northern VA 28 years ago, with the foil faced insulation on the exterior basement wall. The common wall in the basement was uninsulated in the unfinished laundry. I believe they insulated the common wall in the finished part of the basement, but I wouldn't swear to it. The main benefit to insulating the interior wall is noise control since your neighbor's basement is warmer than the outside, likely the same temperature as yours so no a lot of heat transfer will happen. Generally speaking the recommended insulation in basements is paper faced fiberglass batts. However to do that you have to install drywall over the craft paper facing as it is flammable. Hence the foil faced insulation in the unfinished laundry room. You'll want to frame out the wall to hang the drywall. Unless you are adding more insulation, there wouldn't be a need to remove the foil facing. If you wanted to add additional insulation I'd remove or slash the heck out of the foil facing to allow any moisture to move through the original insulation and eventually through the craft paper. You don't want to sandwich vapor barriers.

When I was in Loudoun County VA, I didn't bother pulling permits to drywall the framed wall between my laundry and the finished part of the basement. The chances of this being an issue when you sell the house are minimal.

Here is a good reference on insulating basements. Building Science

 

[tomtheelder2020]

Similar to what Sparky said about the ceiling, if I wanted future access to utilities in the wall I would use paneling instead of sheetrock - only slightly more expensive and it doesn't need to be painted.

 

[Sparky617]

Similar to what Sparky said about the ceiling, if I wanted future access to utilities in the wall I would use paneling instead of sheetrock - only slightly more expensive and it doesn't need to be painted.

Paneling or beadboard panels could work. Drywall would be a challenge to take down and reinstall without breaking it. I drywalled my ceiling in my basement and in two basements before this one. It is easy enough for me to repair drywall. I did leave my shop space ceiling unfinished as there were too many obstructions and in that space I didn't want to lower the ceiling, though I have nearly 10' ceilings in my entire basement. In one area I dropped the ceiling down to 9' rather than installing bulkheads around the duct work and pipes. Pictures of my project are posted on the forum.

 

[serge1966]

Generally speaking the recommended insulation in basements is paper faced fiberglass batts. However to do that you have to install drywall over the craft paper facing as it is flammable. Hence the foil faced insulation in the unfinished laundry room. You'll want to frame out the wall to hang the drywall. Unless you are adding more insulation, there wouldn't be a need to remove the foil facing. If you wanted to add additional insulation I'd remove or slash the heck out of the foil facing to allow any moisture to move through the original insulation and eventually through the craft paper. You don't want to sandwich vapor barriers.

I checked and I think I should provide some more details about the current setup. First of all, all four laundry walls are framed. The exterior wall has paper faced R11 fiberglass insulation. It is also covered with foil. However, if I open loose foil piece I can see that fiberglass insulation is not much in between the studs, but more behind them, due to insulation support wires inserted behind the studs to keep the insulation in place. it looks like they are compressed, which probably reduces their insulation efficiency.

So the frame is already there to install the drywall, but I wanted to see how to make the insulation in more efficient way. I could just leave it as is and install the drywall over the foil.
Or I can take those wires out and re-install in between the studs to decompress the insulation batts, then reinstall the foil an then the drywall.
Or I can try peeling off paper from the existing fiberglass insulation, install a new layer of paper faced insulation and insert wires between studs. Then add foil and then the drywall?

 

[Sparky617]

Peel the paper off that insulation and install more insultation between the studs. You can fit another R13 or R15 in the studs. You don't want double vapor barrier, and you don't want to use plastic in a sub terranean wall.

 

[serge1966]

Thank you, everything is very helpful.
I also googled and found a couple of links on paneling, this one looks pretty good to me to implement.
I am wondering, if later I decide to put a layer of fiberglass insulation batt on top of the panels, is there any tricks in making this? Do I install a layer and support it by something like insulation support wire before reinstalling the panel?